Economic conditions were bad throughout Latin America in the 1980s. Following the rise in interest rates with the Volcker Shock in 1979, and officially initiated by the Mexican default in 1982, debt crises wreaked havoc in the region. For Atlas, however, this "lost decade" carried a promise and created a window of opportunity for the dissemination and application of neoliberal ideas.

Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, loc. 551